Did You Miss Me? - Chapter 1: Turbulence
by CompleteLackOfSurprise
Summary: This fic takes place right after the finale of season 3: Moriarty is alive and ready to pick up where he left off, i.e. making life for Consulting Detective, Sherlock Holmes, as hard as humanly possible. Can Sherlock match Jim's cunning and, more importantly, save his best friend's life? Feedback is much appreciated.
1. Chapter 1: Turbulence

Moriarty was dead, stone dead; Sherlock had seen it with his own eyes. But death was not always so final, so absolute. He knew that from his own scheming past, from the look in John's eyes as he found the face of the friend he thought he'd lost to the brutal hands of self-immolation. That look changed, of course, as their friendship began to reconstruct itself and the grief began to subside, eventually transforming into something vaguely resembling trust. Sherlock's death wasn't final, it was a trick of gargantuan proportions, an optical illusion, so to speak. Perhaps Moriarty had pulled a similar hoax, knowing full well that the man he aimed to eliminate could not be taken out so easily. _One thing is for sure_, the detective contemplated, _either Moriarty pulled a veil before my eyes just as I did to John, or one of his disciples has sprouted up from his ashes. _

Holmes put the phone down on Lestrade with an exasperated sigh. Part of him wanted to rebel against this mercurial system that had been pulling him one way and then forcing him back again; first they were eager to expose him, next they were hell bent on punishing him and now what? They needed his help? _Fine_, he thought, _I'll spare your simple minds from the corruption of Jim Moriarty, but after that what would you have me do?_ Just as the talons of bitterness began to take hold of his mind, an image flitted out from behind the gallantry of his ego. What had all this been for? Who was the sole person responsible for the glorious evolution and reparation of Sherlock's once tattered soul? The answer was more than simple, it was as plain as the nose of his face; _John H. Watson_.

"We need to turn around!" Holmes directed, now standing like a shot of icy wind. To his surprise none of the other passengers, not the officers in charge of Sherlock's safety and transportation or their superiors, seemed phased by this sudden appeal. "Well, come on then!" The detective raised his voice in contention with the silence of those around him. Finally an officer turned around, his expression carrying a sense of eerie composure. "We have not been notified of any such reason that would require the diversion of this aircraft." He said flatly.

Sherlock's brow furrowed in bemusement. Had they not just heard his frantic phone call only moments ago? "What is this? Change course immediately, I'm needed back in London. Has Mycroft not issued instructions for me to be taken back home?" His voice was sharper than he intended it to be, rushed with the struggle of time that was now against both him and those he held dearest. Another officer, a younger gentleman with raven hair and oval spectacles, turned round in an uncanny fashion, his eyes wide as an eagle owl but dense in both shade and reflection.

"We have received no such instructions, Mr Holmes, neither from your brother nor Detective Inspector Lestrade." The words appeared as an endless droning, almost as if they were the jumbled, recycled sounds of the media itself. Sherlock paused for a moment, sensing the peculiarity of the situation before the gravity of the scenario struck him. "I didn't mention Lestrade." He uttered. "And what's more, I recognize those glasses. Tell me, by any chance did anyone besides the coroner visit Magnussen's body after his death?" The sarcasm lit up his voice like a feathery chime, his opponent calm and collected as before.

After a few moments of complete stagnation, the officer's hard crafted lips motioned into a crescent smile and in one dexterous movement, he removed his gilded spectacles and inspected both lenses. "Now why would you be wearing Magnussen's glasses…if they never actually held any kind of useful information?" Holmes pondered aloud, his eyes questioning, always sceptical of the information presented to him. The officer remained smug, his smile now threatening to develop into a fully-fledged smirk. "You better talk to the pilot, Mr Holmes. He says he's an old friend of yours and that we're to ensure that your journey is a comfortable one. Why don't you sit back down, I'm sure he'll make himself known in no time."

Before he had even heard the pilot's voice, let alone seen his familiar face, aglow with malicious intent, Sherlock knew who the officer was referring to. Nevertheless, his logic told him to take a seat as there was nothing more he could do whilst they remained airborne, or until his nemesis dared to show his face, in theatrical style, no doubt. As expected, only moments later, a dull buzz came over the receiver and after a short pause the voice Sherlock had been waiting for came out as low and maleficent as the probing murmur of the detective's own conscience.

"This is your captain speaking…" Sherlock sat fixed in his seat as Moriarty spoke, a painful grimace spreading across his lips. "We may experience a little turbulence in the next few minutes as there is a chance that one of our passengers could be making a swift exit. But don't be alarmed, especially you, Sherlock. You don't have to worry about _staying alive_ while I'm around, that's always been a memorable trait of mine…wouldn't you say so?" Holmes detected the smile on Moriarty's lips as he spoke into the headset, but just as he was about to come to his feet once more, Jim appeared from behind the velvet curtains, ascending from the obscurity of the cockpit.

"So, Mr Holmes…" Moriarty said with a snicker, his eyes rolling back slightly in a reptilian fashion. Sherlock remained silent, taking a moment to run his hands through the roots of his ebony swathed locks, Jim's smile already beginning to grate on him. "So, what?" He muttered.  
>"So?" Moriarty's voice tilted almost musically, carrying with it a sense of childlike anticipation.<br>His excitement was met by the silent, yet questioning eyes of Sherlock Holmes. "Aren't you going to tell me?" He elaborated. Sherlock raised his chin, a gesture that lead Moriarty to his usual response of feigning boredom.

"Tell you what?" His eyes narrowed as if they were zoning in on the sharply dressed Irishman. In reality, Sherlock was planning his next move, planning far ahead right up to the point that his feet touched the moist terrain below. "You _know_ what." Moriarty arched his brow, continuing with a certain tragic eccentricity. "Tell me honestly, you missed me, didn't you?" This was a level of egotism that surpassed even Sherlock's self-adoration. The bluntness and incredulity of it sent splinters of loathing up the detective's arms, leaving his skin raw as gooseflesh.

"You really believe that I could miss you? You truly think that _England_ missed you? If you want an honest reaction, Moriarty, then here it is; the world was a much brighter place the instant you placed that gun in your mouth…and pulled the trigger." A look of gut wrenching animosity flooded Moriarty's face but it was wiped within seconds, leaving only a false smile in its place. "Ooh, look out, this kitten's got claws!" Jim said, mockingly. "It must be such a shame then…" He continued. "That I'm back…and ready to finish what I started. A shame for you at least…and certainly a shame for John Watson."


	2. Chapter 2: And John Will Cry Buckets

After dealing with the sudden influx of phone calls from colleagues and clients who had all witnessed Moriarty's harrowing return live on British television, not to mention the viral surge of online gossip it produced, sending his villainous profile twice around the globe and then some, Mycroft was finally able to make a much needed call to John Watson. "Mycroft, what is it? Don't tell me he's pulled some Houdini trick on the plane and is parachuting towards a soft field as we speak?" The doctor's voice was light and casual but Mycroft could sense the faint trace of melancholy hiding just beneath the surface. "Listen, John." He began. "There's been a…slight change of plan; Sherlock's on his way back, under my orders." There was a pause as John tried to make sense of the information placed in front of him. Hadn't he, merely ten minutes since, been forced to say his final goodbyes to the illusive Sherlock Holmes before watching his companion's plane take off and whir away into the distance?

"John? Are you there?" Mycroft's stiffened voice brought him back from the clutches of daydream.  
>"I'm here I just…don't understand. You're saying that Sherlock isn't on his way to the Far East, but he's actually on his way back to England?" Dr Watson couldn't help smiling in disbelief. Sat beside him, Mary's eyes suddenly lit up with subdued curiosity; part of her wanted to remain passive after what had happened between her and John, but the Mary she had come to terms with, the Mary whom John still often gazed at with an ever growing glimmer of understanding and adoration, was eager to hear what all the commotion was about. "What's going on?" She mouthed, but John was tense with focus and so her attempts to peek inside the engrossed brain of John Watson remained unsuccessful for the meantime.<p>

"Yes John, exactly. Well, now that _he's_ back, Sherlock's the only one we can trust as a weapon of self-defence. Let's just hope it doesn't bloody-well backfire." Watson said nothing, only listened. "I assume you're still in the car with Mary, but you mustn't under any circumstances go back to your house or anywhere near Baker Street. Is that understood?" Mycroft's voice rang out like a school teacher bellowing down a darkened hall, but it fell like an abyss of deafness on John's ears. "I'm sorry, c-could you repeat that? Who's back? Are you talking about Sherlock? Why should I stay away from Baker Street?" The doctor's questions unravelled in a hazy stream that seemed to unfurl onto the road in front of him. Mary's eyes widened as the true topic of conversation began to emerge.

"Oh, you haven't heard the news, John?" Mycroft was smiling hard against the receiver. He took John's silence as negation. "It's Moriarty. He's back." The words, cold and heavily barbed, pelted John with a kind of emotional whiplash; his mind surged with questions, more questions than the human mind was able to conceive, the kind of quizzing that only Sherlock Holmes himself had time for. "Stop the car!" Cried Dr Watson, his tone not one of anger but pure insistence. Mary complied at once, slamming her foot down on the break until the vehicle had come to a jarring halt. "What the hell's going on?" She asked frankly, her tentative gaze drifting across the dashboard to meet John's. Mycroft ended the call decisively, the smile still lingering a moment on his lips.

The car was silent; not even the lull of the engine could pierce the aura of detachment Watson had surrounded himself with. "He's back." His lips finally broke into motion, though his eyes barely lifted to meet Mary's. "Who, Sherlock? Bloody hell, we've only just said goodbye to him. If I didn't know any better I'd say you two were involved in some kind of weird love affair." She laughed heartily to herself but then noticing the frozen expression on John's face, the pale trace of dread gilding his stately features, retreated into a half-smile. "No." John swallowed. "Moriarty's back…and that means he'll be looking for me. He'll be looking for both of us." He placed his hand over Mary's to steady them both, their wedding rings clattering slightly as if to remind him that he was no longer alone in this constant state of martyrdom.

"I can't be the damsel in distress this time, Mary. I don't have the strength for it anymore." Watson's voice dipped a little as he spoke, the damp corners of his eyes threatening to spill over at any moment. "There's no reason for you to be, John. Moriarty can try to use you as his scapegoat as many times as he likes but he will have to get through me first. I promise you that." Mary pronounced each word like it was a sacred oath on which her life depended. In some way, John supposed, it was an oath; after all, they had taken vows on their wedding day, swearing to love and protect each other 'til death rendered them both unable. Perhaps things would be different this time with Mary by his side and Sherlock's firm knowledge on the subject of pseudo-suicide. It was just as this thought began to filter into the next that a loud ringing, not too dissimilar to that of a rusted iron fence being swung open repeatedly, came over the previously hushed radio. The pair were resoundingly grateful once this ear-splitting noise had come to an end, but all was not over.

"John? J-John!" The voice was quiet at first and then raised as ink under puckering flesh. Mary had trouble placing it at first but John had already leant in, his limbs shaking. "Sherlock? Is that you?" He exclaimed, addressing the radio itself as though there were a miniature Sherlock Holmes crouched away in there, as though his friend could hear him. "John!" The voice seemed fatigued, utterly drained of its usual know-it-all charm. "I don't have much time but…" Sherlock was panting. "There's something you have to do for me." John sat even further forward and once again, proceeded to speak into the radio. "Yes, anything! Just tell me!" He cried.

"I need you…to reach into the backseat. Under the right seat there's a bomb. John, you need to disable it; just remember what I did in the station and don't forget… there's always an off switch!" After this final and peculiar piece of advice, Sherlock's voice faded to a simmer and then the silence of the inactive radio returned. John sat motionless at first, his eyes pulled wide as a wounded bird taking its final breaths. Mary was the first to take action; her seatbelt flew back into its holster as she leapt across the backseat and pulled the lethal package from its darkened nook. "What do we do with it now, John? Sherlock said you could remember." Her voice sounded panicky but there was a depth of faith to it, as though the flustered fluttering of her wings could be settled by her husband's mockingbird song.

"Sherlock says a lot of things." John remarked. "Sometimes I wish he'd just keep his mouth shut."


	3. Chapter 3: Not in My Nature

p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family:  
>Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;<br>text-align: justify;""Elaborate." Sherlock demanded, his eyes narrowing at the cruel words Moriarty's lips had shed only moments ago. Jim was beaming with pride at finally managing to force a reaction from the detective. He waggled his head from side to side as if there were a wire on both sides of his face, jostling him one way and then the other. Sherlock had made a mental note of this strange mannerism ever since their first encounter; to him it almost seemed like a nervous tic but now he considered it to be a sign of frustration, a glimpse of his inner turmoil despite having recently succeeded in conning the world into believing him to be dead and buried along with their fear of his imminent supremacy. He was like a dormant volcano, Sherlock pondered, waiting to scold the strongest of mankind, particularly those who got in his way./p 


	4. Chapter 4: Lights Out

p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family:  
>Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;<br>text-align: justify;"There was no button, at least nowhere that John could see or feel. Mary was scanning the object; a large metal container with the timer gleaming up at her like an unsolvable puzzle bright with mockery and confrontation. John was sweating now,  
>his brow furrowed in bemusement. "He said you could find it, John."<br>Mary stated, though she hadn't intended her thoughts to make themselves known. "I'm trying!" Watson's hands fumbled over every surface and between each crevice but still he found no button,  
>no sign of escape. "If I start lifting bits up then it could just detonate." His voice shook, splintered then threatened to dry up altogether.p 


	5. Chapter 5: Survival

p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family:  
>Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;<br>text-align: justify;"A sharp, scorching pain threaded itself around John's throat like a serpent, slowly constricting. His vision was thick with mist. Hadn't there been a fog? His temples throbbed, hadn't his thrilling yet hasty life flashed like splinters of the galaxy before his very eyes? The haze he saw now was of his own creation and realising this, John attempted to rub his eyes with both scrunched fists but finding his arms bound to his sides, struggled and slumped in a frustrated heap, his brow slick with sweat. Emerging from the violent rage surging through the doctor's veins, one fixed thought came through clear as a square punch to the jaw; where the hell was Mary?/p 


	6. Chapter 6: Stardom

"No!" John thrust himself against his restraints and with a sharp tilt, fell to his side, the back of the chair snapping as it hit the floor. "It's you!" He bellowed. "You're the one who has nothing, Moriarty! You're just too callous to notice." Jim softened his grip, though only slightly, his ego too stubborn to ignore John's outburst. "You have all these drones around you, eager to do your dirty work…" The Doctor continued. "But who do you really have? Who comforts you? Who challenges you? There's no one! And once you kill all three of us, who is going to replace this obsession you have with Sherlock Holmes?" John's words fought against the whir of the wind, against the sound of Jim's blood in his ears and the flurry of the traffic below. Both of them were silent for a moment and then Moriarty's hands let go and all at once he was standing above Watson.  
>"There are always more of you, more of the angels to compete with!" He spat, grasping John by the collar and then motioning to Sherlock.<br>"There is no one like him and you know it!" John retorted, sensing the agony, the struggle between Jim's conscience and the hunger of his ego.

The Doctor expected Moriarty to stop and think, to be in complete turmoil. But instead, the Irishman laughed. It was a laugh from deep within his throat, of genuine humour and darkest immorality. "Oh I have someone like him." Jim continued to laugh. "I have someone even better." And with that, John saw Sherlock's eyes widen, looking beyond his friend, behind him and into the face of broken promises. Dr Watson turned, catching her eyes, those gorgeous, delicate brown eyes framed with specs of silver. "Mary?" He mouthed, his breath catching in his throat. Sherlock and John both knew about Mary, had uncovered part of her past, the vague outline of her 'big secret' so to speak, but John had forgiven her lies, had never loved her any less from the moment he met her to the day he found out what she had done. But this…this was deception like he had never known.

"Yes, John." She held her gun as a mother would her child, firm so as not to let it go, but tender with blissful thoughts of what it could and would accomplish. "But your face." John said, his voice almost inaudible. Mary wiped her nose on the back of her hand, the half-dried blood coming away instantly and revealing unscathed skin beneath. "Make-up does wonders, John." She said, close to a smile but never quite touching it. "You always trust your eyes." She said softly, feigning empathy. "No matter how many times you are fooled by those you love…" Her eyes met Sherlock's. "You never question them." Watson didn't know how to reply, didn't know how to talk to her now. She was a completely different person; no longer the Mary he knew and loved, not even the criminal of her former life, but a new character with indeterminate will and the strength of her past indiscretions. "You and him?" John's entire body was shaking now. Mary couldn't help gazing over at the man in question, her eyes suddenly becoming darker, lust filled. "In more ways than one, Johnny boy." Moriarty seemed elated knowing that John's unhappiness had been of his creation.

"But what about…my...the baby, our baby?" His lips trembled, not being able to stomach the thought of his child now being someone else's, let alone being Jim Moriarty's. He was a psychopath, a goddamn dictator for Christ's sake! He simply could not raise Mary's child. _I'm the father_, John repeated to himself, _I have to be…_

Mary didn't say anything; her silence shaping a thousand ugly words, playing a child's painful cries for their father, for Daddy until John could hardly take it. It was all over, shattered into a bloodied mosaic all around him. "No, no, no. Not him…not HIM!" He wrestled against his restraints once more, still unable to move. Moriarty was chuckling to himself, imitating John's desperate fight to be free, a spider in his web of marionettes. "It is rather cruel…" He said, feigning compassion. "Of me to keep you all tied up when your friend over there is doing whatever he likes, well, for as long as he's got left." With that, he kneeled and began untying the rope around John's waist and then pulled the one around his throat over the man's head as casually as a snugly fitting jumper. Dr Watson knew he could have lunged himself towards his cruel captor but he was smarter than that and both of them knew it.

"There's a good boy." Jim smirked, walking back over to Sherlock. They had only a few seconds left and both Holmes and Watson had begun to doubt the very possibility of Moriarty's death; he was like a cockroach that kept on living, kept on striking back. He was a beast beyond death itself.

That was when John thought of it…

_There was a word, goddamn it, a word! What the hell was the word we came up with?_ John's brow furrowed as he tried to conjure up this mystery phrase. It had started with a B…or was it a P? A cacophony of meaningless words made waves inside his skull whilst Sherlock tried and once again failed to get Moriarty on his back. Mary was still pointing the gun in his direction, causing beads of sweat to trickle down his temples. He looked at the gun, then into Mary's eyes and over to Sherlock. Back and forth his gaze snapped like a Polaroid camera. Back and forth, back and forth…

"Bunkum…" John whispered. He saw the red eye of the sniper hovering over his best friend's chest and cried out "Bunkum, Sherlock. BUNKUM!" It was as if in that moment, as the seemingly innocent word left Dr Watson's mouth, Sherlock fired into action. He grabbed Moriarty by the scruff of the neck and then glanced back over to John who, in two seconds flat, managed to tie the straight end of the noose around the stump of an open air duct and threw the rest of the rope to his friend. The whole thing worked as one movement, as if the two men were simply an extension of each other and as Sherlock leapt from the edge of the building, Moriarty clasped against him and the rope in his free hand, John was surprised to feel not only the pang of heart-break, but the slow, twisting ache of self-sacrifice which, as a blistering tear broke free and coloured his cheek like dew on marble, left him with the knowledge that he had not let his only true friend die in vain.

Sherlock kept his eyes open even as the strong current of wind threatened to blind him. He felt for Jim's upper arm which he was holding as tightly as his fingers would allow and turned his eyes skyward, finding that the loop of John's noose had caught strategically on the snaggletoothed face of a gargoyle. The detective knew as he recalled the building's architecture in those fleeting seconds his friend had given him with the utterance of their cryptic password, that an escape such as this would indeed be possible and he had not been proved wrong. Moriarty did not gaze in terror at the eight stories writhing beneath him, even as the wind tossed him from side to side like a baited fishing lure. Instead, he held onto Sherlock's forearm with precise pressure, any anxieties towards his own death a distant memory. He wanted Sherlock gone from this Earth and his legacy corrupted, even if it meant suffering the fall of a martyr.

The detective's hand was safe around the ring of the noose just below the gargoyle's jaw; he felt like he was ringing a large ornamental doorbell in some eerie Victorian horror tale. However, he knew with a heavy heart that any minute now John would most probably be struck down by the only woman he had ever loved and that the rope would eventually give, scattering both him and Moriarty to the asphalt below. He had to shake the man off now, and fast. "Face it, Sherlock!" Jim growled up at him. "You have lost!" The Irishman's eyes bulged from his skull like two jet black stones; desperate, maddening. But Holmes refused to plead uncle, he was not finished, not by a long shot. "You think you know Mary, but you don't." He said frankly, thrashing his arm up and down in the hopes that his assailant might lessen his grip, but to no avail. "She does not have the heart nor the stomach to kill John, not whilst she knows you're dead and can still make a future with him."

Jim was laughing again, only this time his throat was hoarse with wind-whipped grit. "None of that matters anymore, don't you understand? All that I care about…is that you are gone. I need them to see who the real brain is here; me…not you." He had the look of a maniac, lips damp with saliva and those eyes still prominent, so severe. Sherlock did not want to die with that image in his head. "Well you are not going to get your wish, Moriarty!" The detective proclaimed. "Who has the upper hand here, me or you?" He tried again to shake the man off, this time feeling Jim's hand slide from his forearm to the curve of his wrist. "Don't you know the hero always survives, Jim?" Sherlock smiled, hard as it was under the circumstances. "I will live…" He continued. "And you…you will die."

Just as it seemed that Sherlock's proclamation was about to come true, Moriarty twisted his head around as if to motion to some invisible bystander, some phantom observer, and that's when Holmes remembered the sniper. "No, _Sherly_." He called up to him, the laser eye of the unfriendly observer once again making its mark below his left collar bone. "I think you'll find that both hero and villain will meet their end in this fairy tale."

On the darkening roof-top, John stood expectantly, both eyes closed as he waited for the scorching metal to relieve him of his demons. "Go on then…" He said resolvedly. Mary cocked back the hammer, her breath catching in her throat.

_GO ON THEN_.

The words rang in her ears like those incredible few moments after the flight of a bullet.

_PULL THE TRIGGER_.

Sherlock scurried to try and pull himself back up before the shot was fired, his heart already punctured by fear. The hope of seeing John again, of Mary somehow confessing her faults and letting him go with eyes brimming and the burning shape of a gun in her hand, fuelled him onward. He had just about settled himself above the abject statue, Moriarty clinging to his ankles, when a loud gunshot sounded from above.

Holmes felt for his heart, the searing pain threading its way into his veins with maleficent force. But he knew as he withdrew his fingers and found them clean, along with the fact that his death would be at the hands of a silent killer, that the bullet had not been fired at him, but his dear friend…John.

_John._

Watson teetered at first but eventually fell from the edge like an angel struck by Lucifer's gilded arrow. His body cut through the air as gracefully as any swooping bird Sherlock had ever seen, but as he passed him, the lifeless face meeting his for the last time, all hope…all courage was surrendered. He turned his face to the elated eyes of Jim Moriarty and nodded passionlessly, both eyes tearing up for the final moments he had never been able to share with his beloved companion. "You can have your stardom." Holmes spat. "You have rid me of my star." And with those parting words, Sherlock let go of the rope. His limbs stiffened, his ankles free from Moriarty's grasp, and as he closed his eyes to the world; a world that had granted him both the best and worst of encounters, Sherlock Holmes met the curious blue eyes of a stranger, whose arm outstretched sent blissful chords of familiarity straight to the detective's wilful core.

"Dr John Hamish Watson." He whispered. His new friend cocked and eyebrow, smiled and replied "Yes…how did you know?"


End file.
